Pooper Joins The Vintage-Car Party -- 1953 Porsche-Powered Creation Succeeded Despite Skepticism

It was a time before sports-car innovation was the province of sophisticated, wind-tunnel-aided race teams with budgets resembling those of some countries.

It was a time when a person with an idea could use old-fashioned ingenuity (and a good hacksaw) to blend a British automobile with a German motor and turn it into a car that would win a U.S. national championship.

Remember the Pooper?

For those who do, the annual Pacific Northwest Historics vintage-car races Saturday and Sunday at Seattle International Raceway in Kent will be a chance to say hello to an old friend. For anyone else, Denny Akers' Porsche-powered, 1953 Cooper streamliner, and more than 250 other vehicles, will provide insight into a bygone era.

Muscle cars from the Sports Car Club of America's Trans-Am Series in the 1960s and early 1970s will be the featured attraction. But for aficionados of just about anything else with a sports car/road racing lineage, there will be plenty to see on the tree-lined, 2.25-mile road course.

And that includes the Pooper, which began as one of two streamliners Cooper built in England in 1954. It ended up in 1955 in an Empire Way (remember Empire Way?) Volkswagen dealership owned by Pete Lovely, an aspiring sports-car racer whose driving career prospered in part because of what he did to and with the Pooper.

First, he installed a Porsche engine in the rear of the car, despite warnings from Boeing engineers whom Lovely counted among his friends.

"I'm starting to work with a hacksaw to make room for the Porsche engine," Lovely said, "and these guys - these engineers - would come by and say, `Well, that won't work.' Or, `This won't work.' Or, `You can't do that.'

"I got it all together and it just worked great."

How great? In 1955, Lovely raced it enough and was successful enough to win the SCCA Class F-modified national championship.

"The main reason was we kept it light," Lovely said of the Pooper. "When we first put it together, it weighed less than 900 pounds. With a stock Porsche engine with about 80 horsepower, it was beating Porsche Spyders, with 125-horsepower motors."

Lovely said a 1955 race he didn't win was particularly memorable. It was the last race run over the Pebble Beach circuit on the Monterey Peninsula.

"I was having a real good time, except the throttle cable broke," Lovely said.

He stopped the Pooper at the side of the track, got out and discovered the problem. He had to reach the pit area to fix it.

"So I got back in and found out that I could reach around and with my left hand work the throttle," Lovely said. "I'm driving it back to the pits and I thought, `This isn't going too bad.' "

Deciding to stay on the course rather than spend costly time in the pits, Lovely shifted gears while holding the steering wheel with his knees so he wouldn't have to release control of the throttle. He recalls finishing third or fourth.

"There was a big commotion," Lovely said. "Either they thought I was a hero or a stupid fool. But I got some notoriety out of that."

Beating Porsche Spyders was fun, but it wasn't politically correct - Lovely by then had become a Porsche dealer. So in 1956 he sold the Pooper to one of his employees, Tom Meehan, who had it for several years before selling it to Stan Steffan, a Boeing engineer.

Akers acquired it from Steffan in 1988 and has been racing it in vintage events since.

"I rolled it about 8 or 9 years ago, and it was out of commission for a year," said Akers, 59, who operates a Porsche repair shop on Broadway where he maintains an extensive collection of vintage vehicles. "I broke a rear axle and a tire went under the rear end and catapulted the car over."

Akers suffered what he called "a little bruise" in the accident at Seattle International Raceway. To repair the Pooper, Akers replaced the rear half of the aluminum body.

Akers is looking forward to racing it this weekend and in the West Coast's biggest vintage event of the year, the Monterey Historics at Laguna Seca in August. The latter event is limited to about 400 cars selected from an entry list of more than 1,000, indicative of the sport's growth.

Growing, too, is the Society of Vintage Racing Enthusiasts. Organized by Dick Mattei of Seattle, it was founded in 1985 with about 100 members. It staged its first race, along with Vintage Motorcycle Enthusiasts, at Seattle International Raceway in 1989.

In 1990, the race became a fund-raiser for Children's Hospital. That year, 68 cars participated and $7,500 was raised. Last year, about 250 cars competed and $275,000 was raised.

Lovely, 72, now a Porsche dealer in Fife, said the sport's growth is inevitable because every year more race cars became vintage race cars.

And more drivers become vintage drivers.

Lovely, who raced all-out when fun had the advantage over money, said he still is having fun "because I'm doing all this vintage stuff."

Akers had a more medicinal reason for his involvement.

"I guess it's a good way to get an old guy's blood flowing pretty heavy," he said.

---------------------------------------------------------.

Northwest Historics race

What: Vintage automobile race. Where: Seattle International Raceway, Highway 18, east of Kent. When: Saturday and Sunday; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. Ticket prices: adults - $15 single day, $20 both days; children 7-16 - $5 and $8; 6 and under - free. Presenter: Society of Vintage Racing Enthusiasts. Beneficiary: Children's Hospital uncompensated care fund.